


a moonlit path hemmed in

by impossibletruths



Series: cr femslash fest 2k17 [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Freedom, Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9979616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: “oh,” she says once, when she is very young and catches sight of something not meant for her eyes, “but she is beautiful, isn’t she?”“yes,” says father, “as beautiful as you.”and she knows she is not and never will be beautiful, and she does not say it again//she has traveled a long, long way to get here





	

**Author's Note:**

> zahra's backstory is super cool and there's not enough about her in the world. for the cr femlash fest

 

**i.**  girlhood

“oh,” she says once, when she is very young and catches sight of something not meant for her eyes, “but she is beautiful, isn’t she?”  
“yes,” says father, “as beautiful as you.”  
and she knows she is not and never will be beautiful, and she does not say it again

 

 

**ii.** gift

  * she escapes into 
    * light
    * glowing silver-soft and soothing, and
      * _oh but she is beautiful_
  * “child,” asks the light, and her voice is music
    * (she has not heard music in so long)
      * (she had almost forgotten what it sounds like)
    * “child,” she asks, “why do you weep?”
      * ~~she does not have the words to answer~~
        * ~~there are no words for this~~
    * “for the darkness,” she says. “and for your beauty.”
  * “oh child,” says the brilliance. “lift your chin. dry your eyes. you will never be trapped in darkness again.”



 

 

**iii.** miles

there are, she discovers, so many _rules_ in the world. so many things you can and cannot do, and the strongest survive through their strength, but strength does not always mean physical prowess; sometimes brain matters more than brawn, and seeming almost always means more that being.

witchcraft, she learns quickly, masks all of that. and masks, she learned a long time ago, are where true power lies. an enemy who cannot see you weak does not know where to strike.

witchcraft, it follows, is the strongest guarantee of survival she has.

(the moon’s light kisses her face, and she does not weep)

she walks south for weeks, skirts towns and hamlets and civilization of all sizes, watches and does not cross their sketchbook borders. she travels by the safety of the moon, passing over many miles with the silver light at her back, gentle as a mother’s arms, except she does not have a mother and does not know such softness.

she travels for a weeks, slow and wary and watching, until one morning, as the sun rises, she reaches the sea.

she has never before seen such endless space, and the enormity stills her, sea air stealing her breath from her lungs, and she feels stood upon the edge of the world. the moon sinks beyond it, drowns in the vast waters, and she feels herself drown with it, to have traveled so far only to be met with infinity, a border she cannot cross.

she simply does not know how.

in the hazy light of dawn she spies smoke, a lazy curling line drifting into the sky before the ebb and flow of the sea breeze steals it away, and though she has not spoken to a soul in a week (in weeks, months, years; she has been alone in the dark for so long) she sets her feet towards it, descends from the rough mountains of her homeland to the thin, rocky shore below.

a lone house crouches near the shore, stripped of paint by time and the ocean spray, a crooked thing clinging to the edge of the rocks. empty nets and baskets crowd in around it, brown on grey on brown, and it would be a dull and dismal thing except for the smoke that twists above it like a dancer, beckoning and beautiful, and the rising sun behind the mountains catches against the water and sets it alight.

emboldened by the glow––and perhaps, she admits, frightened of the blinding light after so long with the softness of the lady moon––she knocks.

the door is opened by an old woman.

the woman stands tall as her shoulder, hair a salt-white halo around her head, and her sea-grey eyes smile, and she looks carved by the pounding ocean outside, skin rough and lined and dark from sun, and and her eyes crinkle as she tilts her head up.

“well hello there,” she says, and her voice is the rush of the sea, low and catching and steady. “what can I do for you?”

"where am I?” she asks. her words crack, rusty from disuse, and the lines on the woman’s face shift and change like smoke, falling into something sadder, softer.

“ah, child,” she says, “you’ve reached the lucidian ocean.”

“am I still in wildmount?”

“yes, child.”

“who are you?”

“a simple fishwife.”

her next question catches in her throat, she pulls it out bloodied and fragile. “can you help me?”

“child,” says the old woman, and the lines crease around her eyes, turn her gentle and sad, “what is your name?”

and she says, “zahra. zahra hydris.”

“come inside, zahra zahra hydris,” the woman says, teasing, and zahra has not heard teasing before, and she dares, finally, to hope.

“you will help me?”

“yes, child,” says the woman. “yes I will.”

 

 

**iv.** space

when you are mad, they do not ask you questions   
when you are a witch, they do not make you stop  
when you are mad and a witch, you are utterly free

she puts as many miles as possible between herself and wildmount, and only then does she stop running.

 

 

**v.**  heart

hers is guarded,  
fiercely,  
desperately.

and then there is a sharp-edged, smooth-tongued, glorious woman sniping at her, and she has not been that little girl in a long time; now she is a woman and an artisan and she is free, and she sees _her_ , and––

she has not spoken of father in so long. it does not hurt like she thought it would.

“zahra,” she smiles, “getting a bit personal here around the fire.”

“sorry. I thought we were bonding.”

and she laughs, and there are lines around her eyes and her hair falls over her shoulder, and  _oh_ , 

_but she is beautiful._

 


End file.
